Kashmir
by Zeronova
Summary: Kashmir: the type of hole-in-the-wall bar you’re told you to stay away from, but the smell of cigarettes and the allure of some old, deep, sad music always draws ya in. Selected stories from a Holy Order veterans' bar.
1. Kashmir

**_Kashmir _**by Zeronova  
_Started on: _May 12, 2009

_Summary: _So, if anyone recognizes me, this story is typical of my style, meaning it's set in the GG world, but it's not really about the GG cast. And that probably means half of you are already leaving. Sigh. Oh well. This first chapter is the introduction. I am intending to make this a vignette log of a bunch of disconnected stories that all have links to each other. Anyways, hope you enjoy what I'm offering, and hope that this sort of story can still please some readers. Expect updates until I get bored of making stories for this piece. Onward! Hope ya like it!

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The bar reeked of some sorta mold growing underneath the carpet. It was likely that some rot had taken hold of those threads, fed from the cloudy mugs of the oft-spilled moonshine and home-brewed beers traded in this joint. Rarely a night went by when some old coon wouldn't spill his drink all over the discolored rugs. But, it was kept dark so that no one noticed. And you didn't go to a bar for the smell or the decoration anyways, so drink up. We also like the smell.

A big neon sign out front flickered, hanging at an odd angle, reading _Cosmetics_. The place used to be some fashion spa way before the war, but nowadays, it was our pub. Since that damned sign never lit up properly, vandals had gone to changing it, and this shit-house got its name.

So, we have _Kashmir_: the type of hole-in-the-wall that you're told you to stay away from, but the smell of cigarettes and the allure of some old, deep, sad music always draws ya in. Some broken old man would sit on a stool with a rusted microphone held close to the cigar box of a guitar, and he'd play something sad and slow that would make the place melt into the fears of yesterday. When it was done, everyone would take a slow drink together, unsure of how to respond, and a cloud of desperate smoke puffed up like a victory salute in the heavy silence.

In a few years, the kids squatting in the allies, listening at the backdoor—hungering for a smell of that atmosphere—would get their chance to enter the gin joint. One day, those boys will strut in here, put their quid down on the counter and ask for a tall boy just like the rest of the vets. Difference being was that in this day, you could finally have yourself a sixteen-year-old boy-o who wasn't one of God's Murderers a decade prior—a kiddo-dandy who didn't hold the Holy Order broadsword. That was the new type of lad.

Since Justice was defeated, bars like these are one of the last places you can actually feel scared of the unknown; that's why some of these kids stuck around the edges, waiting to get in. In this place, there are still dark corners full of secrets and some threat hidden behind the cold stares. For the types of men whose entire lives were made up of those dark fears, well, they didn't have any place in the new, peaceful world. The kids in the alleys, they idolized those torn, quiet veterans drinking the nights away in silent community grief. Those beaten men represented a world they wish they were born into. These kids wished that they still had a war to fight in. I don't think anybody likes peace.

Truth being was that the war had been over for six years 'bout now. The kids, well, they had seen only _some_ of the horrors. Some lost their parents, families, and homes to it. Undoubtedly, they _knew _the war had happened, but sometimes, you found a kid who just wasn't a part of it. A boy who didn't respect the sacrifices your brothers made and the duty you served. Hell of a disgrace when that next generation that you bled for treats you like yesterday's trash. But, some of us, we wished we still had a purpose, too. Still wished to hold up that old Holy Order sword and rumble the battle hymns. But, now, we're just a bunch of useless old drunks. At least we got each other.

And together we always stayed. Used to be us holy brothers against the big, great, ugly world owned by Justice. Now, it's just us drunk brothers against the world owned by a different type of justice—not the armor clad one, but the written, bureaucrat-clad one. We ain't got a place in any world; we just know how to fight for what we got, and sometimes, they're even takin' that from us. What a shit world. Times I feel like this, we get the bar all humming the words together of the old songs we'd sing at the funeral pits for our brothers.

Lifting that mug with a slosh, I'd lead. "All I see turns to brown." I'd say it loud, without any meter. The boys next to me would look with a cautious eye, the place would go kinda silent, the young idiots asking "what's going on?" in their stilted whispers. Then, the guy next to me nods, looks down and raises his glass and echoes, "As the sun burns the ground." Soon, we'd get the rest of the place chanting quietly, repeating the whole verse.

_All I see turns to brown, as the sun burns the ground. And my eyes fill with sand, as I scan this wasted land. Trying to find, trying to find where I have been._

We'd say it over and over. Long enough until we forgot what we were so sad about in the first place. Then we'd be sad we stopped chanting. And then we'd drink. And we'd drink. And we would drink.

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_Author's Note:_ Well, been a while. I usually say that. It's usually true. I guess I'm attempting to write this story as a more mature endeavor than my past stuff. I don't wanna waste too much time with this note, but I do wanna say a few things. Damn, FFN's tools when you log in have gotten _spiffy_. Look at all these cool features! Moving on. I hardly recognize a single author on the main GG page, and it looks that the stories shift very slowly...so GG isn't very active these days. Not different from my old days. Anyways, hope you stay tuned for the rest of what I got packed for this series! Oh, and yay summer time.


	2. The Private and the Rue des Bouchers

_The Private and The Rue des Bouchers_

I remember one sad night, I was sitting at the bar and a man I never saw before walks in. He was a rough-looking guy. Few scars on his knuckles, some shaggy, unkempt jet-black hair tucked behind his ears, and a real hurt in his eyes. His eyes were the type of brown with the flakes of green and gold that look just a shade different from average-brown, and that's cause you only get that fleck-stained look from crying out the brown.

I had my usual post: last stool on the left, in the corner, leaning up against the old radio with my bad leg up on the stool next to me. The tubes inside the radio were warm and fuzzy-sounding, and we'd listen to some Italian gal sing every night at eleven. We had no clue who she was, but she just sounded so damn nice, and for some reason, some idiot out there played the same album every night on that frequency. So, we always listened.

I was tapping my fingers on the bar to the gal, drinking back my brew, and this knuckle-dusted brown-brow walks in. He shuts the door behind him after a moment, letting the draft in for just a second to make sure everyone noticed him. He had an air about him that screamed "I want you to notice me, but I want you to forget about me." Then he comes to the bar, looks the rows up and down, and sees the only spot open next to me. He walks over, points to my leg resting on it and looks at me. I look back at him, smiling and still tapping to the song. I even get toothy with my smile, but I don't move my bad leg. He blinks, lowering his head, as if to say "do you not get me, or are you just being rude?"

So, I finally say, "I see you there, pal, but this spot's taken."

He looks me up-down, and I give him the straight-and-narrow look. It always goes like this in Kashmir. New fish comes in, and if he starts trouble, we got a dozen vets still packing blades and the combat thirst. If the new fish stands the fryer, then he usually becomes a part of us. Most the time, they just leave. Not this guy. So, I'm looking him over, listening to the sweet _amore_ sound fill the room, that warm fuzz of the old tube radio inexplicable and dense, just like the stale atmosphere of the place.

He's got on some brown leather boots, scuffed and roughed, covered over by a long brown coat going to his knees. Underneath the dirt, it's a Holy Order coat, but I don't think it has shown its white in close to six years. I thought I saw a green trim, meaning he was a private, but it was hard to tell. A few buckles kept the loose pieces together and the seams on some of his ragged clothes underneath were sewn by an unskilled hand. He had a pair of gloves, and a down-turned collar with a high-necked shirt. His face was about thirty-two, but it had seen the rough stuff. A stubble graced the edges of his jaw like it belonged there. It didn't seem like the unprofessional facial hair that happened from forgetting to shave, no, it looked like his chin hadn't been smooth since his coat was white. And yet, no beard, just that razor stubble. Add that to the jet-black hair and the speckled eyes and you got an odd character.

He finally spoke. "I'm not much in the mood for crap. I just wanna have a quiet drink."

"Me too, buddy! And, you're messing that up, so git." The barkeep was leaning against a far wall, rubbing a glass with a dirty cloth. The barkeep always had a perpetual motion about him, as if he was mechanically inclined to always be cleaning something and never could stop. "Can you believe this guy?" I yelled down to the squat, balding barkeep. His name was Zimmerman. Zimmerman responded by a shrug and a spit of his tobacco into a small jar behind the counter.

"I'm really not looking for trouble," the newcomer repeated to me.

"You're not understanding, pal," I repeated, "but you're making trouble if you continue. Stand or leave." The man looked around him—an action he did out of sarcasm—then trained back on my eyes. There was an empty table in the back, but one of the legs was cracked off and it could hardly stand without a fierce wobble, so the new guy arched towards the stool again.

He stared me deep, without blinking. I sensed a danger in him, but not an active threat. He didn't look like he was going to attack, and he wasn't even reaching for the sword obviously hidden under his coat. He had the gold dust of the plains in his hair and on his cheeks. Something was ticking in his head. "How about this: you were part of the Order, right?" I nodded and led a cheer for the Order, and the entire bar raised their glasses, not their eyes. "Then how about this. What was the biggest battle you ever participated in? Yours better, I stand, mine better, you gimme the seat."

"Kid, I held the Rue des Bouchers with Kliff Undersn." He tilted his head back and grunted. "Yeah, that's right, Brussels, 2169. I was there when Justice held Brussels with that two-thousand strong and we kept them all holed up in that street. I fought for nineteen hours straight, arm-to-arm with Kliff himself, cutting and stabbing till God Himself had to pull my sword outta my hands. That's why I can't walk so good anymore, ya see?" I lifted up my pant leg, showing the chasm scar running up my calf and wrapping around to my knee.

"Gear came and chomped down on my leg, ripping me off the ground up into the air with one yank. Kliff jumps up, puts that blade of his down through the beast's head, but it goes through my leg here," I point to my scar on my quadriceps, "and yeah, couldn't walk so well after, but Undersn made sure I was alive. Pried that sucker's jaws right off of my leg, got back up, and continued fighting. Wasn't until I passed out from blood loss did I stop fighting. And, when I woke up, I walked over to the medics, seeing how we won and they were cleaning up the wounded. They took one look at my leg and, oh boy, you shoulda heard that U.N. gal pop her head at the sight of my flesh hanging in rags. They started right away, getting disinfectants and crap on me, asking if I was in pain. All I wanted was a cup of water. They got it to me, and you know what happened?"

He shook his head no. "I said you know what happened? I want you to guess!"

"I'm gonna bet you did something really cool, corporal."

"Oh, so you can see my rank, huh?" I tugged on my collar proudly. "That's right, we all still wear it on our collars, right boys?" The patrons all pounded their fist on the bar in one, unified _stomp. _"You don't, though. You only got the coat on, a private's coat, no less. Green trim—what, you weren't good enough for even a yellow private first class?" The private didn't respond. "When I drank that water," I continued, "I bled! It's like all of a sudden, _whoosh_, that water made blood and within half a minute, I had blood coming back out of that wound. Medics told me I had fought so hard I had dehydrated myself right outta bleeding. Now _that's_ what being in the Holy Order was about! And, I'm sure as hell you can't top that, private." I smugly leaned back, turning the dial up on the tube radio. "Let the lady sing now." I smugly smirked, folding my arms and looking at the men at the bar who all nodded in agreement. They approved of me telling off the new kid.

Truth be told, he wasn't a kid. Far from it, but I was nearing fifty, so a guy in his thirties—yeah, that's a kid.

The Private—as he came to be known—leaned over me, and turned the knob back down, looking me cold in the eyes. He was so close I could smell the sand in his collar.

With a cold, solid voice, he responded simply. "Me too."

Now, a few heads turned.

"'Scuse me, Private?"

"I was at Brussels, too. I got separated from the fight at the beginning, so I wasn't holing up at the Rue des Bouchers, but you wouldn't know what me and my squad did anyways, seeing as you passed out. I was fighting up until the last Gear died."

Now he had the bar's attention.

Mine, too, to be honest.

"If you wanna hear the rest, I get the chair." It's a no-good moment when you're called out on your crap, and at this point, I was shit cut-dry. Looking at a few other faces, I searched for an answer. I hoped for that sideways nod to tell me _not_ to let The Private sit, but all I saw were curious, arched eye-brows. Muttering some shit-brown expletives, I slowly yanked my braced knee off the bar stool and let The Private sit. This is when this eyes, deep with hurt and that voice, solid with resolve and without tone, picked up a little. His heavy eye-brows worked into a more expressionable way and his voice gained a bit of life. He was easing up. So was I.

He swooped onto the rickety stool quickly and smoothly. The ripped, red-leather top squeaked under him and the rusted pole underneath gave a rickety whine as he spun it to face the counter. Putting both arms on the bar, he took off his gloves, placing them under his elbow, then held up a finger to the barkeep. Dipping the glass under the spiggot of an old, wood barrel, the barkeep filled it up, and slid it down the length of the bar. The Private effortlessly caught the sliding glass.

A weird, quiet moment followed. The Private looked at the glass, then down the bar at Zimmerman, the barkeep. Zimmerman stared back with a confused glance. "Nah…" The Private whispered, taking a sip, then his eyes shot open wide at the taste. He definitely knew something that none of us did. I shot a questioning glance to the other guys at the bar, and they shrugged. "No shit," The Private muttered breathlessly.

With a bellow of a voice, The Private called down the length to the seated bartender. "Long time, Zimmerman." The bartender spit into the bucket angrily.

"If you are who I think you are, we're better off not talking about it. Tell the man your story, Private," Zimmerman said. Zimmerman was an old-style bartender and had been one all his life. He had missed out on most of the war, living behind the solid walls of Neo Troy for most of it, and by the time the Crusades came around to ending, he knew that he could only do the same thing he always had done: make a strong brew and give the sad souls of the world a place to mope. Somewhere in Zimmerman's short, balding physique—something rough and Italian about those broad shoulders—you could see he, too, had a pain that came in the same memories as the soldiers who lost some good friends in the war.

"You know Zimmerman?" I asked to The Private.

"Don't you wanna know about Brussels?" he asked with a smirk as he sipped on his honey-brown ale. Something about Zimmerman being here opened up The Private even more. When he walked in, he had a feeling of being a bit dangerous…rough and something displaced. Now, he was looking like he knew exactly where he was and how to act. The Private had a smirk on his face that cut like sweet bullshit, now knowing he had the upper-hand and an almost guaranteed position at this bar if he chose it. I sighed, and motioned for him to continue. "Well, remember the mission structure?" I nodded. "I'll go over it again, for those of you might've not been in that particular bloodbath," he said loud, craning his head to the rest of the bar. He knew he had the attention, and he was now reveling in it. He took a long drink, a deep breath, and languished the silence that only he could break, since no one else dared make a sound. The only thing we heard was the fan lazily spinning above.

"The mission started like any other. We were going in to reclaim Brussels. We had a three-pronged attack—same style as Kiske used to re-take Lyon. But, this was when Kiske was green and wasn't even seeing combat. We had the M.T.'s ferry us in, attacking from North, South-West and South-East. I was put in the North group: the hardest job. We were all going to head towards the Royal Palace of Brussels, cutting clean paths to the Park Van Brussels, which is where we believed we'd find something important. Like most U.N. sanctioned missions, we didn't know what we'd find, but we only knew we had to find it. And, this is something you might've missed, _pal._" The Private said that last word with a heavy languishing. I took another hard drink, letting him continue.

"So, we wait until dawn to attack. We all remember how they would see better at night and how the dawn would screw with their sight, so that's when we attacked. Standard stuff, right? I remember camping out five miles north, then humping it at the middle of the night to the border of the enemy-occupied zone to attack right at the break of dawn. And, _bam_," The Private struck the bar with a closed fist, "we hit them hard. We ran in all sides, slashing and stabbing in a grand mess of the place."

"I remember that they were just standing there, most of them. Weren't even fighting back, just standing around in that unprogrammed daze, like Justice wasn't even giving them any commands. Didn't take long for their red eyes to roll over, their backs to hunch, and then, they were active, but I got a solid six in before they started fighting back. I had the taste by then." The Private pointed to a particularly dark stain on his coat. "This was my first that day. I never washed the coat, never sent it to the laundry jocks in Paris."

"You were stationed at Paris?" I scoffed. The Private quickly shook off the comment.

"I wasn't there when it was over-run, if that's what you're asking. I was out on border-patrol duty in Geneva." I nodded, but something stuck in the back of my mind.

We all know what happened to the Paris base. That Holy Order facility was built into the side of a hill, and man, it was a pretty sight. Huge facility, all underground, but on Kiske's first battle, the place was over-run and over four-thousand men died that day. Somehow, Kiske and a handful of men made it out, but not many. And, the reason four-thousand died was because Kiske was a rookie then, and he had sent no men out on patrols or city-watch or missions. He had everyone sitting cozy at home, unaware and unprotected. Something wasn't right about The Private here, but I didn't say anything. It would take a long time before I knew just what the gig was with The Private—longer than this particular story.

"So," he said, finishing his drink and having another mug reeled down to him without having to ask, "we ran down the alleys, cutting and breaking all of the Gears we could. We got messy fast. I was a private, yeah, never got promoted neither, but that was cause I never listened to my superior officers. I never stayed in formation or stayed with my regiment. I just picked out the next Gear and attacked." A coughing laugh came from a few of the other patrons. We all like to think we were the solo badass of the war, but we all know everyone's full of shit. This guy, though, he seemed like he believed his own brand of storytelling exaggeration.

"We cut down the Koninginnelaan, happily stabbed through the Rue des Palais, and cleared Koningsstraat. On the open field in front of the Royal Palace of Brussels, I cut down one of the last Gears, wading through the ponds to get to the limping bastard. He leapt at me, doing that pounce, and I cut through him in mid-air. He rolled into the fountains, and I leapt in, kicking the body, cutting off its talons and feet, then held its head under the water with my boot until it stopped moving. We all sang and rejoiced, then we noticed something…do you know what we noticed?"

"We noticed that the South-West group hadn't made it to the rendezvous. Considering the South-West group had the most soldiers, since Kliff was in that assault group, it was unlikely they were all killed. No, they got stuck. Where did they get stuck at, pal?" He looked at me with a devilish grin. He wiped some of the sand from his cheeks, looking to his other side at the weary faces listening. "They got stuck at the Rue des Bouchers."

At this point, The Private stood up, holding his beer as he spoke, walking and talking, lost in a daze of glory and a dream-like wisp. He was dancing with himself, smelling the old smells and looking _through_ the bar. He was feeling that fight again in his veins. He wished he still had a war to fight, and you could see it in his eyes as he talked. The Italian singer's voice picked up in an operatic number, the falsetto of her voice carrying through the heavy cellos and crisp violins, creating a crescendo as The Private's personal fantasy recollection hit its glorious stride.

"So we went, screaming and yelling the top of our lungs, 'Death to Justice! Long live Undersn!" We attacked from the south side of the street, considering _your _attack was from the northern avenue," he pointed at me, "and we found walls and walls of Gears!" He let out a passionate gasp. "Stacked on top of each other, running along the sides of the tight street, ripping out the red blocks with their bloody-little talons and swooping through the purple-blue morning sky into the white-coats of the Holy Order on the far side of the street. They were swarming with a tenacity that was obvious: Justice had given them the distinct orders to be ruthless because the one-and-only Kliff was there in the fight. And, as we all know, Justice would focus the Gears on Kliff the most in any battle."

"And, this part is what you won't remember, _pal._ Since they focused on Kliff, we had their backs!" His voice took on a sweeping, violent tempest as his words crashed like the swinging of a sword or an axe into a tree trunk. "We came in from behind, all of us swinging those broadswords and smashing the faces of any downed Gear with the butts of our swords, splashing that goopy red blood all over our hands and boots. We jumped off of the rubble to get thicker into their midst, and we tackled through them two-to-three deep, cutting them apart like paper dolls! And, they never noticed. We were done with those Gears in three minutes! Three minutes that had your entire battalion stuck from the rendezvous, the moment that you found so glorious, we got through in _three minutes_!"

The Private triumphantly returned to his seat as the music died down, smiling at me with a pronounced victory. "You know what the best part was?" I quietly waited for his response with a collected anger. "Only seventeen of us showed up the Royal Palace, and all seventeen of us made it through the Rue des Bouchers to the South-West attack front. Nine-hundred survived from the South-West battalion, seventeen from the North and South-East. Only _seventeen. _We all died getting to our rendezvous, and we decided we weren't going to die getting back to the slackers of the operation."

He stood up, snatching his gloves from the bar counter, walking to the back of the bar with long strides and out-stretched arms, as if he had his own parade and a screaming choir in his head. He approached the empty, rickety table. He was victorious. The Private grabbed three of the dozens of Bibles on the bookshelf and put it under the leg of the rickety table, then sat down triumphantly resting his legs on it. He drank the rest of his beer as the entire bar peered over their collected shoulders at him. He set the empty mug down, then looked back at me.

"By the way, that wasn't my best battle. Kinda lame it was your best." There was a short chuckle. "And another thing," he said with a pistol finger, "where'd you learn to keep track of time? Nineteen hours on that street?"

The bar erupted in laughter. A few of my fellow soldiers all slapped me on the shoulder, joking and wheezing. We all know exactly how this goes. It's just a war story. That's what I told myself. War stories are, by their very nature, untrue. Somewhere in the thick of the fight, things happen that no one understands. For me, it was nineteen hours. And I know how many I killed. A war story happens in that weird place between reality and fiction, and nobody can say you're wrong. It's just…how it is.

But, despite what he said, I liked The Private. He called me out. He stuck it right back to me. That's what you needed in a place like this.

We all had to fight against the new world, since the war ended. And, while we gave each other mountains of shit, if ever there came a contender, we were united again, just like against the Gears. Sure, he came through the back of the Rue des Bouchers to save us, and yeah, he'll make me look like a pussy, but he still—in some tiny way—saved my life, and we both were fighting against the Gears. Say what you will, but that's what the Holy Order was about. We all hated each other, but we're at least on the same side.

Zimmerman stood up slowly, setting down the mug he was wiping clean with that dirty rag. He grabbed two glasses, filled them both, then sat down with The Private, and they began to talk quietly. The rest of us stayed at the bar, and they all stopped heckling me within a few minutes. We helped ourselves to refills while Zimmerman talked to The Private, and we continued to listen to the Italian gal singing on the tube radio for the rest of the night.

The Private was now a part of us, and he made that small table in the back his spot for the rest of the days he spent in Kashmir. But, he never told us his name. We were okay with that.


End file.
